Hi everyone - just to let you know there was an unofficial 'like' campaign started back in April on Facebook for all Northern Ireland businesses. It was like a round-robin with everyone 'liking' each others business page - it was just a way to drive up awareness about what companies are operating in Northern Ireland.

You are more than welcome to go on my Facebook page and work through the 'likes' - they are a good bunch and will 'like' you back.

Ive started a disastor restoration company speacialising in fire, flood, storm damage to properties. I deal with the insurance company from the off, right to the final snag in the repairs. Based in Belfast but cover the whole of NI.

Ive started a disastor restoration company speacialising in fire, flood, storm damage to properties. I deal with the insurance company from the off, right to the final snag in the repairs. Based in Belfast but cover the whole of NI.

Neil

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Hi Neil

I hope your new business goes well although hopefully this winter wont include a big freeze, burst pipes and flooding like a couple of years ago!!

I hope your new business goes well although hopefully this winter wont include a big freeze, burst pipes and flooding like a couple of years ago!!

Regards

Dave

Ha ha. It just so happens that on my to-do list today is phone every plumber on the yellow pages to introduce myself and to phone me the minute there's damage to a property from a burst pipe. I'm trying to think of different ways to get to the customer before they phone their insurance company.

Ha ha. It just so happens that on my to-do list today is phone every plumber on the yellow pages to introduce myself and to phone me the minute there's damage to a property from a burst pipe. I'm trying to think of different ways to get to the customer before they phone their insurance company.

Neil

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Good thinking, I know plumbers were so busy before that they had too much emergency work so there should be plenty of work out there ... if the same happens again of course.

Online ventures just started include a franchiseable model of a group buying website Treat Local - launched in 2012 and heading in the right direction. - currently looking for people to join me, online marketing and offline sales reps, possible company shares available.

A few other sites including a how to site on ho to learn facebook - for social media marketing tips, free and paid.

and i am currently always in development for new sites and affiliate networks and oppertunities to partner up and share my contact base in Northern Ireland.

I hope this is a good introduction and i look forward to chatting with you in the forums.

Sorry to hear you are closing some of your shops, I'm sure that was a difficult decision even if the financial side of things made it the right decision.

Sometimes less is more, I wonder if you will be able to focus more on the remaining (more profitable?) shops to make those more appealing to the public and more profitable to you.

Times are hard for most people. I'm an Accountant, I see lots of businesses accounting records and I think people have to a certain extent got used to watching their pennies and have forgotten what its like to spend money more freely.

That's not to say people don't spend money, its just that you have to have a better product, better price, better advertising to reach them at the right time.

If you don't try and innovate then you wont get anywhere but you also need to know when to call it a day and maybe start something else.

This is Gavin from Office Convergence Ltd., we're a voice & data consultancy and generally end up working with anything with a flashing light on it.
We supply low energy PC's (10 watts per user), low rate telecom services (3p/min mobiles, 0.5p/min landlines - no call set-up fees and per second billing...) and we also get involved in infrastructure designs (IT) such as call centres and financial services ecommerce. Very hard to list everything really.
We were basically born out of the Quinn Group fallout, were looking to start up on our own and then the Quinn Group issues 1) hurried things up and 2) provided the redundancy monies to finance it all. Been in business just over 2 years and don't owe anyone one iota.
We sit on the middle of the fence in terms of politics and religion - we're all just people at the end of the day.